Why am I going back, AGAIN, to discuss this jury experience I had? Because it seems to have tapped into many issues that face me and likely many people.
It's judgment---in the heavy, "I'm right and you're wrong" tone that disturbs me, and that's what came across so clearly to me after being on that damn jury. Though the LAW asks that jurors be objective (aka "fair"), most human beings are not capable (or have not advanced to the point) of seeing through entirely clear lens. And so we were asked to achieve something that neither the judge nor the attorneys practice themselves (they all had agendas and only made an effort to hide them from the jury, not from each other or from the defendants I found out later). In fact, the defendants, the prosecuting attorney told me, were counting on a hung jury, which explained their cavalier attitudes during the trial and their little winks and smiles to each other.
And---like the judge---I, too, believe that drugs are more a social issue than a legal one, but I was asked to put my beliefs aside and to judge impartially, based on the evidence.
I walked to the courthouse one day to make a point to myself that I would not walk in fear of retaliation (for whatever happened in the courtroom), and one of the little chants we sang while I was in Chartres came to me in the rhythm of my walking: "All healing is the release from fear, and without fear there is no need to judge."
This was helpful to me, but still----I had a job to judge as a juror.
And now, over a week later, I'm having a hard time washing my hands (yes---Judas-like) of that feeling, and I wonder whether to stop this public writing (because it's so easy for others---if there are any others reading this----to judge you by your writing, with its illusion of permanence and certainty) and hide out to think these things through on my own.
